“You can hitch your wagon to the stars, but you can’t haul corn or hay in it if its wheels aren’t on the ground.” Mordecai Pinkney Horton

We are excited to announce: The Self Care Project 2016

It’s been three years since a group of us launched The Self Care Project – aiming to create a space where we could wrestle with the challenges of taking care of ourselves and others amid a world in crisis. We’ve had nearly 60 people participate so far, and we are thrilled to be heading into another year!

Why Self Care?

You care about the world. A lot. Ironically, this can mean that your own wellbeing can end up at the bottom of the list of people, issues and campaigns that matter so deeply. Enter… The Self Care Project.

It’s a simple experiment in helping you be more resilient. Why? Because the world needs you. Not the exhausted, frustrated, caffeine and carbo-loaded you, but the you that is effective, powerful, clear-sighted and inspired in your work for the common good of our planet and communities.

Who are we?

We’re a group folks not too different from you. We want to take our self-care seriously, while not taking ourselves too seriously. We think it’s a recipe for stronger, sustainable movements, with healthier and happier people behind them.

What does it look like?

Most of the project will happen in small groups (of 12-16) with a facilitator. We will open with a full-day orientation, followed by 8 evening sessions – one evening every second week, from 7-9 pm, in people’s homes. There will be a mix of activities and resources, space to learn, reflect and connect.

“later that night / i held an atlas in my lap / ran my fingers across the whole world / and whispered / where does it hurt?
it answered / everywhere / everywhere / everywhere.” ― Warsan Shire

For many people it has been a heavy-hearted fall. Punctuated by moments of joy, or relief, only to be weighed down again by the next news cycle, the next horrific story of humans seeding fear and perpetuating violence.

This is as much the case here at home – racism disguised as security, or not disguised at all, prioritizing some colours of lives over others – as it is in the attacks we hear about abroad.

And, as is always the case, how we were taught to respond, and what we are able to call out of ourselves in response, defines us. What levels of love, or hate, might we be capable of? What would it take for us to do better, be better?

As the days get shorter and colder, it feels like a time to gather together. Hate isn’t countered alone. It is countered by the only forces strong enough to dissolve it – curiosity, cooperation, radical inclusion.

We don’t move from terror to safety through more violence and war. We move from terror to safety through a profound rediscovery of our collective capacity to love. That is the challenge that will lift our weary, heavy hearts.

Are you up for it?

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The Paris Climate Talks

Christine is heading to the Paris Climate Negotiations (COP21) this week, as a delegate from the United Church of Canada. She will be blogging, tweeting and facebooking.

“The fireman responded to an apartment fire and found a bed on fire. They questioned the tenant as to how the fire started. “I don’t know,” he said, “it was on fire when I lay down on it.” – Robert Fulghum

This spring I had the incredible opportunity of traveling to the Vatican for meetings and events around the release of Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Laudato Si, about the need to radically re-think our economic system and our view of the good life, in order to protect god’s creation and god’s people.

What struck me most about the whole experience is our need to stop making small changes, and to start making big ones.

This summer my home province of BC was on fire. Again. And what seemed most shocking was that we barely flinched. In all kinds of crises, the horror in retrospect is how long business-as-usual carried on.

And once the crisis has (hopefully, eventually) passed, the stories we want to tell are of ordinary folks as they began to courageously respond. We are made of stories. And these types are favourites. At least they are favourites of mine.

So I was thrilled about the Pope’s encyclical – I think it is important. But I am even more thrilled about some events close to home:

And the United Church of Canada’s recent decision to live into their values of climate justice and reconciliation by divesting from fossil fuels.

I’ve spent much of this past year on parental-leave, dealing with small cries and crises, never more deeply aware that the world was on fire around us. I’m grateful that each day more people are finding ways to organize to change that.

Fondly, Chris

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Faithful Voices Speakers Bureau

Conversations about both faith and climate in Canada need some fresh voices. We’re it.

Interested in having one of them join a panel at an event or conference you are organizing? Or guest-preach in your congregation? Or contribute to your newsletter, magazine or blog?

United Church of Canada divests from Fossil Fuels

“The United Church of Canada has lived into the policies that it has developed over the past 20 on climate justice, and is taking prophetic leadership. We should see this as a symbol of hope for the climate justice movement.”

“Power, properly understood, is the ability to achieve purpose. It is the strength required to bring about social, political, or economic changes. […] Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.” Martin Luther King Jr.

Fossil Free Faith, a collaborative project between Spirited Social Change and Faith & the Common Good, is excited to be launching a Youth Fellowship Program and online campaign.

We are looking for young people of faith interested in strengthening moral and faith-based calls for climate justice and fossil fuel divestment in Canada.

Are you interested? Or do you know someone who might be interested? I’d love for you to share the info below. You can also read more at: www.fossilfreefaith.ca/youth.

As you’ve probably heard me say before, I’m terrified by the climate crisis. And I’m so inspired by the youth-led social movements that have sprung up across the globe in response to it. As we await the Pope’s encyclical on climate, and the upcoming climate talks in Paris, and as more and more religious and secular institutions join the movement, now is the time to raise our own moral voices.

Thanks for the support. And for all you do on the issues that most light you up.

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Concerned about climate change?
Connected to a spiritual or faith community?

Fossil Free Faith is looking for young people of faith* to become leaders in strengthening moral and faith-based calls for climate justice and fossil fuel divestment in Canada.

Our BC Youth Fellowship Program will become a multifaith network of organizers, activists, videographers, artists, writers and speakers. We will provide training and mentoring around climate issues, fossil fuel divestment and clean energy reinvestment, social movement organizing and communications, and will help create opportunities to raise and amplify your voice. Find out more and apply at: http://www.fossilfreefaith.ca/bc-youth

The BC program is a pilot project that we hope to replicate in other parts of the country. In the meantime, we are gathering voices of young faith-based climate activists across Canada to amplify online!

Share your story. Email us a photo of you, and a statement about why you’d like to see faith institutions divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in your future. Or follow us on Twitter, and find us on Facebook, and then share on social media with #faithinmyfuture.

___*What do we mean by “young people of faith”?
We mean people under the age of 32-ish who are active or inactive members of religious communities, or connected to a spiritual practice, or who don’t belong to anything at all. Who consider themselves religious, or spiritual, or agnostic. And who practice these things in all sorts of ways. We mean people who believe that our diverse spiritual and faith communities can be a force for good. We mean people who have faith in a better, cleaner, fairer, more just future. Quite possibly, we mean you.

“If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference, then we don’t want successful leaders. We want great leaders – who love the people enough, and respect the people enough to be unbought, unbound, unafraid, and unintimidated to tell the truth.” – Dr Cornell West

Dear Friends,

It has been a while since I’ve written one of these posts. A busy while. In the company of many good people, I’ve spent the past months labouring in the business of birth.

First of all, in August my partner Seth and I had a little baby whom we named Aaron. I am obviously biased, but I think that he is totally lovely.

Secondly, since last Spring I’ve been collaborating with a whole group of faithful folks across the country who share concerns about the climate crisis, and together we have created…

(I know, it’s hardly as cute as a baby.)

Fossil Free Faith is a multi-faith consortium made up of passionate volunteers from around Canada supporting and engaging one another and our faith institutions about climate justice, fossil fuel divestment / reinvestment, and the role of bold faith in strengthening our shared future.

I’m excited about it. As the climate crisis worsens, I continue to meet people of faith who want to know how they can leverage the spiritual and material resources of their faith to be part of creating solutions rooted in love and justice. And my answer is that there are a million ways, all of which have value, and none of which are perfect. And as faith communities at this moment in time, I think that fossil fuel divestment is our best, imperfect, next step.

Baby Aaron has been a constant lesson in slowing down, and taking things step-by-step. He has also been a new source of fire, of holy commitment to creating a better world. As always, it is a joy to be labouring in that work with you all.

Fondly, Christine

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Upcoming Events & Resources:

Multifaith Presence on Burnaby Mountain

For those in Metro Vancouver, there has been a call for a multi-faith presence and show of support for climate justice on Burnaby Mountain. This Thursday morning, people of faith (and others) will be meeting at the corner of Burnaby Mountain Parkway & Centennial way at 9:45am to walk up the mountain together.

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Learn more: Fossil Fuel Divestment

Curious to learn more about the fossil fuel divestment and reinvestment movement? And it’s connections to faith?Here’s a primer, from the United Church Observer magazine. You can also find out more at www.fossilfreefaith.ca.”Climate change is happening. It’s worsening. Our options for action are running out. Our government isn’t budging. And the call for real action on climate could use additional moral voices. Our voices.”

An evening of conversations about climate change, fossil fuel divestment and the call for moral action to stop tar sands, pipelines and environmental injustice. Featuring:

Rev Lennox Yearwood gets that climate change and poverty, race and culture, democracy and corporate power, are all connected. He knows that it is a moral challenge, and he preaches the need for bold action. The Rev is a minister and community activist, and President of the Hip Hop Caucus, a national non-profit that empowers young people to participate in elections, policymaking, and systemic change. He has been an influential voice for the moral call to climate action in the United States, speaking against the Keystone XL pipeline, and in favour of green economy alternatives that create good jobs and a clean environment for future generations.

Sean Devlin is a comedian, filmmaker, activist and Executive Director of SHD. He has been performing standup comedy since he was a teenager and has been active in the climate justice movement for 4 years. He is a direct action trainer and a thought stylist at the Yes Men’s Yes Lab for creative activism.

Heather Milton-Lightening has over sixteen years of organizing experience from local issues to international campaigns. Heather was a founding member of Native Youth Movement that empowered youth politically and socially to make change in their communities, and then went on to found and build a national Native youth network that supported Native youth organizing across the US and Canada with the Indigenous Environmental Network. Heather currently is working on a contractual basis with many different organizations doing trainings, facilitating and support work for Native communities.

Coordinated by Spirited Social Change, 350, Hollyhock, the Social Change Institute, local student climate groups, and others.

]]>http://www.spiritedsocialchange.org/boldaction/feed/0Standing on the shoulders of giantshttp://www.spiritedsocialchange.org/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/
http://www.spiritedsocialchange.org/standing-on-the-shoulders-of-giants/#respondWed, 14 May 2014 19:53:41 +0000http://www.spiritedsocialchange.org/?p=559

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” – Desmond Tutu

Nelson Mandela passed away over 5 months ago now. But he keeps popping into my head, and he continues to captivate the public conscience.

It is rare these days to hear a public figure speak with such conviction and such eloquence about the capacity of people and the possibility of doing better.

There is a line in Eknath Easwaran’s preface to The Essential Gandhi where he reflects on Gandhi’s leadership in Indian social movements and he says, “Called to be more than human, we looked around and saw that we were capable of it.”

We face great challenges, globally. But we stand on the shoulders of giants. Giants who have modeled non-violent, creative, courageous, moral leadership, who saw beyond what was “politically viable” or what “tested well in focus groups”. Who have been part of movements that challenged us, and changed our world.

The words and actions of these folks are worth remembering, if and when the looming clouds of despair linger around you too long.

Hosted by Spirited Social Change, Fossil Free Canada, the Social Change Institute, and local campus groups

Article: Divestment Strategy

In the United Church Observer: A healthy profit shouldn’t come at the expense of a sick planet, say activists. They’re encouraging schools, churches and other institutions to freeze out fossil fuels.”Climate change is happening. It’s worsening. Our options for action are running out. Our government isn’t budging. And the call for real action on climate could use additional moral voices. Our voices.

A religious life has a different view of time and power. We are neither the beginning nor the end. I am not in charge of this universe. I just work here. I am responsible to act faithfully and truthfully. I am not responsible for the final outcome. – Ursula Franklin

In my public-policy work, we are always advocating for plans. A national housing plan. A poverty reduction plan. Community sustainability plans. A universal childcare plan. Climate change mitigation plans. A green-economy plan. The importance of good planning feels intuitive to me. It’s how we know where we want to go, and how we’re going to get there together.But it’s totally counter-intuitive to my lived experience, which is that things rarely go the way we plan.I’ve been thinking a lot about that incongruence lately. Thinking about what the balance is between making plans, and being willing to constantly adapt them as everything changes.

It seems to me that there are big elements of trust, and of a particular kind of detachment, involved in navigating that balance. A trust in some larger forces, or in the support of people around us. And a detachment from perfection, from having control over it all.

All of which, in my world, makes the act of making plans a sort of spiritual practice. A visioning of how we want life to be, and a commitment to doing the work of moving toward that.

Which, actually, is pretty similar in our lives as in policy. A vision, and a commitment to doing the work. It’s a helpful way, I’m finding, to re-frame the things I’m wrestling with in my life, and the things we’re wrestling with as a society.

How can we take better care of one another, and ensure a clean and healthy future for our children. We’re doing the work, day in and day out. But we need a plan.

NEWS & EVENTS:

Hidden Legacies film screening

Wednesday, March 12th, 7pm
SFU Harbour Centre

Hidden Legacies is a short documentary, profiling young people whose parents and grandparents attended government-initated, church-run, Indian Residential Schools. In their own words, these inter-generational survivors – a rapper, a mother, a boxer, a social work student, and others – share their stories of struggle, resistance and resilience. They show low land, spiritual practice, and family have been sources of strength and transformation.

The film is a project of the Interfaith Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements.

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Caring for All Creation Course

Weekly gatherings March 3rd – May 13th, 2014
In Victoria, Vancouver, or Online

Caring for All Creationis an outgrowth of Spirit of the Land, an effort to build a Community Land-Ethic, begun nearly 3 years ago in Camrose, Alberta. Find out more and sign-up at:http://spiritoftheland.ca

Whole Child Conference

The Whole Child ECE Conference focuses on the whole child, including the spiritual dimensions of early childhood, in a multicultural and interfaith context.

The conference will provide educators and parents with practical ways to include a multicultural and interfaith sharing of a wide range of views that is inclusive of the families and children that caring professionals work with.

Trinity St Paul’s Divests!

On Sunday, Feb 23rd, the congregation of Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church became the first Canadian faith institution to divest from the fossil fuel industry.

The community decided, in a unanimous vote, to lend its voice to the fast-growing divestment movement, and to ensure that its own funds are not invested in any of the world’s 200 largest fossil fuel companies. The move is part of a larger climate justice movement that sees fossil fuel divestment as one tool for reducing the power of the dirty-energy industry, and shifting investment toward clean alternatives.

“I’ve grown impatient with the kind of debate we used to have about whether the optimists are right or the pessimists are right. Neither are right. There is too much bad news to justify complacency. There is too much good news to justify despair.” – Donella Meadows

These dark, holiday day can be a real mix of emotion for most people. Which made a new book from Barbara Ehrenreich particularly catch my attention. Ehrenreich sets out to debunk the new-agey obsession with positive thinking. And particularly the dangerously common mix of positive thinking and unregulated capitalism.

I’m a big fan of gratitude. Especially on these short, cold winter days. But in the world of new-agey spiritual philosophies, I think we can do better for ourselves and one another than the shallow positive thinking that Ehrenreich and others so articulately challenge.

To be of use
“The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who stand in the line and haul in their places,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.”

Life will at times be tough, complicated, joyful, frustrating, meaningful, and overwhelming. Messy and imperfect and totally unpredictable. Let’s head into another year of it together.

Fondly, Christine

Penny Rossenwasser in Vancouver

Penny Rosenwasser is former Jewish Caucus Chair of the National Women’s StudiesAssociation and is a founding board member of Jewish Voice for Peace. Her new book, HOPE into PRACTICE: Jewish Women Choosing Justice Despite Our Fears, is a rare blend of healing stories, history and a fair-minded perspective on Israel-Palestine.
Co-Sponsored by Independent Jewish Voices-Vancouver, Building Bridges Vancouver, Spirited Social Change, and InterSpiritual Centre of Vancouver SocietyFind out more here.

Fossil Fuel Divestment Training

January 18th – 20th in Vancouver, BC. (Billeting and scholarships available for folks outside of the city)

As the fossil fuel divestment movement continues to grow, the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition is holding trainings to help train organizers, start new campaigns, and take existing campaigns to the next level.
Useful for anyone thinking about starting or getting involved on a campaign within their faith institution, municipality, school, union, ect.Find out more and register here.

The Work that Reconnects

February 22-23rd, at the Stanley Park Ecology Centre in Vancouver.

A transformative group retreat to enliven and deepen our motivations for creating a just and sustainable world. With facilitators Jackie Larkin, Heather Talbot and Maggie Ziegler.Find out more and register here.

The Self Care Project 2014

Last year’s pilot of the Self Care Project was a huge success. And we’re getting ready to run it for a second year! In Vancouver, Victoria, and possibly Saskatoon.
We’ll send you more information at the beginning of 2014. Look out for it in your inbox. And please help spread the word.
Because we want a movement that builds us up, instead of burning us out.Find out more here.